Wanted: A Real Family

by Karen Rose Smith

  Connie playfully punched her husband in the arm right before he hurried off. “He talks like he doesn’t want to be involved, but he does.”

  “I’ll start stacking these by the door,” Jase told the women as he hefted a box into his arms and carried it to the other side of the room.

  “The cottage on Raintree has been empty for a while,” Connie noted. “I got the impression Ethan didn’t want anyone but Liam and Jase on the property.”

  “I’m only there temporarily. There was a fire and I didn’t have anywhere to go.”

  “You’re that Sara Stevens. I heard the news spot on the radio. I’m sorry. It must be awful to lose everything.”

  “Oh, but I didn’t. I have my daughter and she’s what’s most important.” Sara pointed to Amy who was laughing and giggling with one of the other kids.

  “Were you Jase’s physical therapist when he returned from Africa?”

  “Yes, I was. That’s how we met.”

  “No wonder he asked you to stay at the cottage. I know he owes you a lot.”

  Connie and Tony must be good friends with Jase if he told them about his therapy.

  “He worked hard to get better. He doesn’t owe me anything.”

  When Jase returned to Sara and Connie, he said, “I’m going to have to get going, too, but I can deliver some of these along the way, and the rest of you can concentrate on the summer lunch program.”

  Sara was hoping he’d stay, that maybe they could start their discussion here even though he said it wasn’t the best place. But that wasn’t going to happen. Winery business was calling.

  The men loaded boxes into both trucks, and then Connie and Tony left. After checking in with Kaitlyn, Jase stopped at Sara’s station again.

  “They’re a nice couple,” she said.

  “Unlike a lot of other marriages, theirs seems to work. Tony and I cross paths fairly often. They’re good friends. I was surprised to see them here. Yet I shouldn’t be. Connie is all about helping kids.” He paused and looked at his watch. “Well, I’d better get going. I have a meeting and I don’t want to be late. I’ll see you back at the vineyard,” he told Sara, his intense gaze making his words a promise.

  * * *

  The wine cellar was a perfect fifty-five degrees late Saturday evening. It was also silent and a world away from the rest of the vineyard. Jase studied a row of tilted racks until he found first one bottle of wine, a Pinot Noir, and then another, a Merlot. He thought about seeing Sara this morning. He couldn’t get her off his mind. He was going to keep his word to her. They were going to have a talk.

  The heavy wooden door to the basement room creaked and Jase was surprised to see his father walk in. He was holding a clipboard.

  “I thought you’d retired for the night.” Often his father ate his dinner in his room, then stayed there for the rest of the evening.

  “No, I was talking to Liam about this year’s crop. How was your meeting earlier with the marketing company?”

  “It went well. I think they’re what we need. They’ll start building our brand on social media, as well as in traditional advertising.”

  “Build our brand,” Ethan scoffed. “We’ve had a brand for seventy years.”

  “We have. But branding is different now. It’s about catchphrases, memorable sound bites, reaching the most people with the smallest amount of effort.”

  “Go with them, then, if you think they’ll agree with our marketing budget.”

  “What are you doing down here so late?” Jase asked.

  “Checking off the wine I want to use for the party next weekend. Don’t forget to dust the mothballs off your tux.”

  Every June his father hosted a soiree that brought together vineyard owners, neighbors and any contacts his father found beneficial. It was black tie and evening wear all the way.

  Ethan nodded to the bottles of wine in Jase’s hand. “Private party?”

  How much to say? “No, just a small wine tasting. Sara’s never had Raintree wine.”

  Ethan’s brows drew together. “If you give her too much attention, she’s not going to want to leave.”

  “Attention? We’re going to talk and have a glass of wine.”

  “How do you know she’s not a gold digger?”

  Jase sighed. “Don’t start.”

  “She’s down on her luck, and maybe ready to reach for anything she can get, including you.”

  “You think I’m such a good catch?” he tried to make a joke of it, but as usual, Ethan wasn’t in a joking mood.

  “You’ll have an inheritance any woman would want.”

  “Sara isn’t interested in my inheritance.” He wasn’t even sure she was interested in him, not after what she’d gone through with her husband.

  “She’d be a fool not to be. So how long is she staying? Have you gotten a date from her yet?”

  Jase hesitated, debating with himself about how much to say. He knew the truth was best. “It might be a little longer than she planned. Her insurance settlement might be delayed.”

  “Why?”

  “She had debt and a high mortgage. The insurance company is investigating.”

  “And you don’t think she’s a gold digger,” Ethan muttered.

  “I think she’s a single mom caught in circumstances she can’t control. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  He wouldn’t get drawn into an argument about Sara or about anything else. He knew from experience his father didn’t change his mind once he’d made it up. Jase had had practice standing his ground the past two years. Sara wouldn’t be an exception.

  * * *

  When Jase knocked on Sara’s door ten minutes later, he didn’t know what to expect. Amy might be in bed or she might not be. Either way, it was fine with him. Just thinking of her created an ache inside him. She reminded him of a dream that had slipped away.

  Sara came to the door dressed in shorts and a tank top for an evening at home with her daughter, her arms full of toys. Her hair was clipped on top of her head, strands escaping in a way that made Jase want to touch them. He wanted to touch her.

  Instead he offered her the bottles of wine. “I thought we could have a tasting and see what you like. If you’re free...”

  “Amy’s in bed, and I’m just about finished cleaning up her toys.” She put the armload in a plastic bin, then turned back to him. “I don’t have wineglasses, but I do have juice glasses.”

  “They’ll do.” He opened the screen door and carried the bottles to the coffee table. “I even brought a corkscrew. Just in case you didn’t have one.”

  “Good thinking, or your wine tasting would have fizzled.”

  He gazed into her eyes and felt that elemental attraction again. So elemental that he reminded himself he was here to talk to her.

  After Jase removed the banding around the bottle caps and used the corkscrew, he poured a sample of the first bottle of wine into two of the four juice glasses. “How long were you at the day care center?”

  “We finished around three.”

  He picked up one of the glasses and handed it to her. “I’m terrifically impressed with The Mommy Club. After I left there today, I had an idea about promoting it more, to get more people involved.”

  “What’s your idea?” Sara’s fingers brushed his when she took the glass. She was looking at him as if what he had to say was more important than taking a drink.

  Damn, but he wanted to kiss her.

  “Try your wine,” he said, his voice husky.

  She took a whiff of it first and then a small sip. He could tell she let it linger on her tongue a bit. This wine tasting might have been a very bad idea, especially if they didn’t just gulp it right down, which a good wine connoisseur never did.

  “It’s drier than I
like,” she said honestly.

  “Okay, then let’s try the next one.”

  “Aren’t you going to tell me your idea?”

  “I want to get you set up with the right wine first. But if you want a really sweet wine, I should have brought a dessert wine.”

  “You have those, too?”

  “Sure. We make a raspberry that’s great over ice, but in the meantime, try this.” He poured from the second bottle into the other two juice glasses.

  This time, after she took a sip, she smiled. “Perfect.”

  “You mean you might have more than a sip?”

  She took another swallow and smiled again. “Yep, I could probably drink two glasses of this.”

  “Just two?”

  “I don’t drink much, so when I do, it goes to my head.”

  He was going to have to remember that because if he ever kissed her, he wanted her totally sober. He cut that thought off and reverted back to his idea about The Mommy Club. “If there was more publicity about The Mommy Club, good publicity, more people would volunteer, right?”

  “That makes sense. I know Kaitlyn tries to get the word out, but that’s not always easy.”

  “Exactly. The organization needs more than a website or flyers placed at strategic places. So I was thinking about going to Cal Hodgekins at the newspaper and pitching a series of articles on The Mommy Club.”

  “That’s a wonderful idea! I would think any newspaper would be glad to print something you wrote. You won a Pulitzer. What more could any newspaper want?”

  Sara’s words brought back the award-winning series of articles he had written, the photo layout that had gone with them. Unfortunately, he remembered all too well why he’d stopped writing and stowed away his camera. The assault that day on the aid workers had been bloody, brutal and deadly for some. He’d been lucky. For some reason, his life had been spared. But the pictures in his head of what had happened that day would haunt him forever.

  “Did I say something wrong?”

  He brought his gaze up to hers. “No, you didn’t. It’s just been a long time since I’ve considered writing or photographing anything.”

  She looked as if she wanted to reach out to him, but maybe she was afraid to. Maybe her troubled marriage prevented her from reaching out to men. Or maybe Jase’s lack of response when she’d told him about her husband had affected her.

  With a small shrug, she suggested, “If you came up with this idea, and it stirs your journalistic instincts, maybe it’s time to start again.”

  Perhaps that was true. Perhaps enough time had passed. Could the same be true for his libido, which had been in deep freeze since he’d confronted Dana about her infidelity?

  Bringing Sara here had stirred it all up again. “I suppose avoidance isn’t a viable strategy for living.”

  “Avoidance? Or denial?” she asked in that straightforward manner that he appreciated. “Because I’ve done both and neither helps. The more you bury the pain, the more it hurts.”

  “I never thought about it like that,” he admitted. “Burying the pain seemed like a good idea, especially when my physical therapy was over. I don’t know if I could have lived with it on a daily basis.”

  “And now?” Sara’s golden-brown eyes were soft, her expression understanding of what he’d experienced.

  “And now I don’t think avoidance or denial will fix the problem.”

  “What problem do you want to fix?”

  Her hand was toying with the juice glass on the coffee table. Reaching over, he covered hers with his. “I shouldn’t have left the other night the way I did.”

  She glanced down at their hands, then back up at him. “I dumped a lot of my personal history on you...and the news about the investigation.”

  “When I was your patient, I told you what happened with my fiancée.”

  “That was part of your therapy. It’s important for me to listen carefully when I treat someone because not all physical pain is from a physical source.”

  After he absorbed that, he admitted, “I wanted to know about your marriage, and I still do. But I know it’s painful for you to talk about.”

  “It is. But I want to let go of it, not dwell on it. Still, sometimes what happened with Conrad directs what I think about things now, how I feel about getting involved with someone again, if I should even consider it. Certainly not while I’m in the mess I’m in.”

  “You mean the insurance investigation?”

  She pulled her hand away from his. “Yes. I saw the doubts in your eyes, Jase. Doubts anybody would have.”

  “I don’t doubt you, Sara.”

  She looked wary. “But the way you left—”

  “That avoidance I just spoke of—avoid pain, avoid involvement, avoid controversy. I’ve been pretty much doing that for two years, so that was my first response. I guess the bigger question was—did I want to get involved in your life by believing anything about you? Do you understand?”

  “I think so.”

  He slid his hand along her neck and fingered her earlobe. She closed her eyes for a moment as if she enjoyed his touch, but then she opened them and he knew what he had to say.

  “I don’t for a minute believe you could set fire to your own house. That’s not you. That’s not the woman who helped me heal. That’s not the mom who takes care of Amy every day. So no matter what anyone else believes, know that I believe in you.”

  “Oh, Jase.”

  He knew moving in to kiss her was a mistake, especially after the history of pain they’d both experienced. But he felt urges he thought had died, and they were strong and couldn’t be ignored. The look in her eyes told him she felt them, too.... The chemistry between them, the sexual hunger. That drove him further. He didn’t know what he expected from her. He warned himself that he expected nothing.

  But as soon as his lips took hers, fireworks burst bright and high. There were sparks and then fire that quickened every one of his nerve endings. The reason? She was kissing him back like she felt them, too.

  As his tongue slid over hers, the taste of wine was heady. But even headier was her taste underneath, a sweetness that was pure woman. An alarm in the back of his head told him avoidance was still best, that remaining uninvolved was the safe way to go...that danger lurked in passion, the same way it lurked in the best cause.

  But Sara smelled like strawberries and the sweetest garden mixture. As he ran his hands up and down her back, all he wanted to do was undress her.

  That thought stalled when she abruptly ended the kiss, braced one hand against his chest and looked stricken.

  “Amy’s in the next room,” she murmured, “and I...I can’t do this.”

  This. Just what was this? Kissing until they stripped each other’s clothes off? Having sex on her sofa while her daughter was in the next room? Becoming involved in a physical relationship that could hurt them both?

  Like a mantra that needed to be recited in an interminable loop, he warned himself, She’s a mom. She doesn’t sleep around. She deserves commitment.

  Being involved with Sara meant being involved with Amy. He wasn’t father material. He’d never treat a child with the indifference with which Ethan had treated him, but what did he know about daily parenting? What did he know about having a relationship that lasted? That’s exactly what Sara would want. But right now, he wasn’t sure she wanted anything from him.

  “I’m not tipsy,” she assured him, “but I think you saying you believe me made me a little intoxicated.”

  He supposed that was as fitting an excuse as any, but he didn’t like the fact she made an excuse. “I didn’t say it so that would happen.”

  “I know,” she almost whispered, moving a little bit farther away. Didn’t she trust herself? Or didn’t she trust him?

  He
stood. “I’m going to leave the wine. If you cork it, it will keep. You might develop a real taste for it.”

  “Jase, you understand why I stopped, don’t you?”

  He did, and he didn’t. “I understand that sex can be different for a man and a woman, especially when there’s a child involved. But I also think you need to admit your needs and not deny them.”

  “It’s never just sex, Jase. Not for me. Is it for you?”

  “Sometimes it is.”

  She looked disappointed at that, but what he said was the truth. It was the difference between them, and their lives—a difference that urged him toward the door. Although Sara followed him, he opened the screen door and stepped outside.

  “Thanks for coming over tonight, Jase, and letting me know you believe me. That means a lot.”

  He gave her a smile that was hard to dredge up, nodded and left. Maybe avoidance was a virtue, after all.

  * * *

  “Are you sure you want to do that?” Marissa asked Sara late one afternoon as they stood in her office.

  Sara had seen Marissa’s car was still here and decided she could start paying back The Mommy Club one member at a time. She just didn’t know if Marissa would go for it.

  “Do what?” Jase asked, striding up the hall.

  Sara had seen him go up to the house earlier and she was hoping he was still there. He must have gotten a bite to eat and come back to work.

  Amy tugged on her hand. “I’m hungry, Mommy.”

  “I know, baby, just a couple of minutes.”

  Moving over to Amy, Jase waved a hand behind her ear and pulled out a coin. “Look what I found.”

  Amy’s eyes lit up as if he’d done the most magical thing on earth. He handed it to her. “You can put it in your piggy bank. Do you have a piggy bank?”

  “I have a doggy bank Miss Marissa gave me.”

  “That will do. If your mom stands here too long talking, maybe I can find another coin.” He looked at Sara again. “So what are you two discussing? Or is it none of my business?”

  “She wants to help me,” Marissa said with a frown. “And she doesn’t have to.”